


Brighter than the Sun

by QueenSinnamon



Series: The Cha-Jung Household [17]
Category: SISTAR, VIXX
Genre: Cha-Jung Household, F/M, Family, Fluff, Friendship/Love, M/M, Mild Angst, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 13:51:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9387971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenSinnamon/pseuds/QueenSinnamon
Summary: Taekwoon wants a child, Hakyeon is terrified, and Hyorin gives oddly reasonable advice; How Cha-Jung Jaehwan came to be.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Just a heads up for readers who came here for SISTAR: This is mostly about VIXX. XD  
> Not stopping you from reading, of course, and I hope everyone enjoys this, whichever fandom they came from. ♥

They were in bed the first time Taekwoon asked.

“Hakyeonnie.” His voice had easily pulled Hakyeon out of the limbo between sleeping and waking, and Hakyeon had hummed questioningly, blinking blearily up at the faraway look in Taekwoon’s face. Taekwoon had hesitated, and Hakyeon had placed his hand on Taekwoon’s cheek, thumb stroking the soft skin, gently encouraging him to go on. 

Taekwoon had taken a deep breath, and Hakyeon wished he had too. “Would you have a baby with me?”

* * *

“I mean, who says that, Hyorin-ah?” Hakyeon says as he picks up stray crayons from the rubber matted floor. Seohyun giggles from where she sits wiping grease and food crumbs off the low tables, and Hakyeon glares at her. “In bed, no less?”

“I don’t know, Hakyeonnie, but god forbid your husband ever want to build their life with you, right?” she says, and Hakyeon chucks a crayon at her. He misses by a mile but she flinches with a laugh, shielding herself with the rag she had been using to clean and getting droplets of the soapy water on her shirt, which was already stained with crayon, ketchup, and other things. She doesn’t seem to notice them, or if she does, she doesn’t care.

So pretty and bubbly for as long as Hakyeon could remember, Hyorin has been his best friend and confidant since they were little. What Minhyuk lacks in giving comfort, she makes up for in spades, turning rain in Hakyeon’s heart into golden sunshine within minutes. Sometimes he thinks it’s almost unfair that he only gets to visit whenever he has problems, but Hyorin has never complained, and he makes up for it quietly by helping her clean up in her nursery after the last of her charges--”My kids, they’re my kids from other parents” she would correct him--had been picked up for the day.

“I mean, come on, what’s so bad about that?” she says, looking dreamily into space with a bright sappy smile. “I think that’s sweet--you know, raising a little you and little him together. Isn’t that the epitome of a great marriage?”

She has a point, Hakyeon thinks, but then again… “I didn’t marry him because I wanted to have kids, Rinnie,” he says, slumping in the middle of the floor, bag of broken crayons half forgotten in his hand. “I married him because I wanted to be with him.”

“And you are now.” He hears Hyorin sigh in that fondly exasperated way of hers when she thinks he’s being silly and then she’s right in front of him, slightly damp hands taking his left and shaking it a little, the band of looping gold and silver on his finger twinkling in the light. “So why don’t you want to have kids?”

He thinks about that for a moment, growing old with Taekwoon, just the two of them, and it’s a pretty picture but somehow...lacking, as if it could be brighter, the frame just a little more crowded--A child, or two, a perfect little package with bits of him and pieces of Taekwoon, and something completely of their own. 

He does want it, but the moment he imagines himself with a child, the picture shatters. Where does he even begin at parenting? He doesn’t even have the right...equipment for it. “I’m scared, Hyorin,” he says, voice shaky from holding back a pathetic sob. “I don’t know how to be a parent. What if I’m…”  _ I’m not made for it _ , he stops himself from saying _. _ “I don’t think I can do it.”

There’s silence, and he thinks, for the first time, he’s caught Hyorin at a loss for words, only to look up and find her staring at the ceiling, lips pursed in thought. “I think I’ve heard that from someone before.” She jumps as if it just hit her and pulls him up, dragging him to her corkboard wall where pictures of her kids with their parents were pinned. She makes an exaggerated sweep with an arm, gesturing from one end of the board to the other. “Everyone.”

Hakyeon looks at all the pictures as if seeing them for the first time. He had been here plenty of times, looked at the pictures and seen the happy families, kids clinging to their parents, some riding on their shoulders, others holding hands, as they posed with mirroring smiles. Not once had it occured to him that the parents could have been anything but sure of what they were doing. Even now he still refuses to believe it, and it must have shown on his face because Hyorin bends forward, clutching her tummy as she wheezes with laughter.

“Oh god, you should’ve seen you face!” she says, clutching at his sleeve to pull herself up, and Hakyeon shrugs her off out of spite, giving her his signature stank face--eyes squinting, upper lip curled back in a grimace. He turns to leave, but she catches him by the hem of his shirt, pulling him back. “Wait, wait!” She schools her expression into one of calm determination, knowing he would try to walk out on her if she so much as peeped another giggle, and holds his hand in both of hers. “Seriously, none of these parents really knew how be parents before they became one, and even now sometimes they’re still not sure if they’re doing it right.”

Hakyeon sighs, looking back at the pictures, the healthy happy little children, and he tries to see himself and Taekwoon with one of them. “So how did they do it, Hyorin?”

Hyorin beams brightly then, correctly guessing that he was close to convinced. “They learned on the job.” She raises his hand to eye level then, pointing unnecessarily at the shining eternity ring around his finger. “Together.”

* * *

Taekwoon had been overjoyed when Hakyeon finally said yes, they were going to have a child, and immediately launched into plans and schedules when they can visit the nearest orphanage, and it nearly broke Hakyeon to watch his husband deflate when he said, “But not now.”

Taekwoon’s smile disappeared and Hakyeon had gestured for him to sit on the couch beside him so he could go on to explain, “I want us to go through this from the very start. If we’re going to be parents, I want us to raise our child from the womb onwards. I want us to really know how it is to be parents.”

The quick downwards glance Taekwoon gave him was enough to let Hakyeon know his husband had misunderstood even before he spoke, “I don’t think either of us can do that, love.”

Hakyeon had laughed dryly, shaking his head. How adorably dense his husband could get sometimes. Hakyeon had reached under the sidetable then, pulling out a thick legal envelope labeled “Elligible Candidates for Surrogacy”.

* * *

“What do you think?” Hakyeon gestures at the papers laid out on the rubber floor, all containing pictures and information (educational background, medical records, criminal records, everything--Hakyeon had been very thorough) of all the ladies that had volunteered for surrogacy at the agency.

What used to be a hundred forms had been reduced to more or less thirty, sifted through by Hakyeon and Taekwoon themselves over the past few weeks through background checks (people really put so much out on the internet, it’s ridiculously helpful) and phone interviews. Still, they were left with a pretty impressive file, all made up of ladies with a relatively calm history (Hakyeon had been terrified when one woman let slip that she used to go on gang wars--how that came up in conversation, Hakyeon had forgotten), has no direct relative with any hereditary disease, and had at least finished high school with decent marks.

Now Hakyeon sits in the middle of Hyorin’s nursery floor again, the little desks already cleaned and pushed against the walls, the rubber floors wiped. The forms are fanned out between him and Hyorin, who sits cross-legged across him, lips pursed in thought, hand under her chin as she scrutinizes them one by one.

He waits. If he himself had taken his time carefully filtering through all the files for the mother of his child, he doesn’t see any reason to rush Hyorin for her advice either, but then she groans and throws her hands up, shrugging. “It doesn’t really matter, does it?”

“Excuse me, it doesn’t matter?” Hakyeon gasps indignantly, clutching at the front of his shirt in outrage. “We are choosing the future mother of my child, and you say it doesn’t matter?”

“Okay, fine!” Hyorin momentarily flails, looking at the files in a panic before jabbing her finger at a random woman’s form. “This one! She’s pretty.”

Hakyeon burries his face in his hands and sobs. “I can’t do this, Hyorin-ah.”

Hyorin is quick to cross the distance between them, wrapping an arm around his shaking frame, free hand patting him on the back. “Hey, hey, it’s okay, breathe,” she says, deliberately breathing with sound for him to follow. “Inhale. Exhale.”

He does eventually calm down, sighing morosely as he stared at the files again. “I just can’t be sloppy with this, Rinnie. If I mess up here, it’s not as if I can throw the child away and try again. It doesn’t work like that.” He laughs wryly, but he knows that she knows he means it.

Hyorin pulls him to lean on her shoulder, bare as she had taken off her cardigan and left herself in just a tank top, and the softness of her skin is comforting, cool against his cheek. “I’m sorry if I sounded careless,” she says, fingers combing down stray locks of his hair. That always soothes him. “I only meant that, whoever the mother is going to be, in the end, you and Taekwoon will be the baby’s parents, and it will grow up learning from you two.”

He looks up at her with a glare, which immediately softened as he chuckled. “Taekwoon said the same thing.”

“Well, there you go.”

Hakyeon pushes off from her with a sigh, picking up two of the files and holding them up as if to compare, though truly he knows them all by heart now. He had pored over them so many times. “I know that, just…if there’s any chance at all that the baby could get anything from me and Taekwoon--” He pauses to give her a look and a sheepish smile, and she giggles, remembering the stories and the problems Hakyeon had told her about. “You know, both the good and bad, I just hope...Well, I just hope it could get some good from the mom too.”

Hyorin hums, idly picking up one other file and staring at it, at the picture of the pretty stranger whose name and face would likely fade into the background in a few years. Hakyeon collects the rest still on the floor, thudding them a few times on the floor to make sure they’re all in one neat pile before reaching for the one in Hyorin’s hand. He secures them together with a clip and puts them all back in the envelope, now noticeably more roomy than it had been when he had first gotten it.

Hyorin takes the envelope from him, staring at the words on the label. Elligible candidates for surrogacy--He knows it doesn’t sit right with her either, that it’s too...cold and clinical for what he’s asking of them. “If it really matters to you what the mother is like, maybe instead of looking for the perfect stranger, you should find someone you already know,” she says with a faraway look on her face, no doubt already going through the list of women in Hakyeon’s circle, “someone you trust enough to bear your child for you.”

But of course. It made perfect sense. Why hadn’t he thought about that before?

They arrive at the same conclusion at the same time, a soft “ah!” of understanding passing between them.

* * *

Taekwoon arrives from work just as Hakyeon is setting the last of the cutlery.

The lights had been dimmed down, letting the candles in the middle of the dining table cast an orange glow and stark shadows on the atmosphere, highlighting Hakyeon’s golden skin, his smile. There’s a whole roasted chicken next to a platter of shrimp aglio e olio and a bottle of wine chilling in a bucket of ice. 

Taekwoon crosses the room quickly, closing the distance between him and Hakyeon to plant a soft kiss on his lips, caging him in his arms. Hakyeon wraps his arms around Taekwoon’s neck, pulling him closer if it’s even possible to, smiling into the kiss.

His husband might now what it’s about yet, but he knows Hakyeon’s habits enough to know that he has good news, something big enough to celebrate that he had ordered food and set up the fancy things. It’s almost tradition for Hakyeon.

When they break away for air, Taekwoon keeps on holding him, one arm around Hakyeon’s waist, free hand cupping his face tenderly. “Tell me,” he says, lips brushing lightly against the tip of Hakyeon’s nose, and Hakyeon laughs, heart suddenly so light.

“Don’t you want to have dinner first?” he says, trying to push away to no avail. Taekwoon holds him fast, hand on Hakyeon’s face pulling him back for an insistent kiss as if to coax whatever secret it was out of him, and it works like magic. It always does. Hakyeon can never deny Taekwoon anything, not for long. He’s breathless when they part again, voice coming out a whisper. “I’ve found our surrogate.”

Joy breaks in Taekwoon’s face instantly and he laughs, lifting Hakyeon off his feet and twisting around so fast that Hakyeon squeaked. “Oh god, thank you!” he says as he places Hakyeon back down, taking his hands and lifting them to his face to kiss his knuckles, his fingers. “Thank you, love, thank you.”

A small voice in the back of Hakyeon’s head notes how Taekwoon doesn’t ask who the surrogate will be. It didn’t matter to him, and all he really wanted was a child to raise with Hakyeon, and it’s both the sweetest and the saddest thing, Hakyeon thinks, that their firstborn may grow to be much like the brilliant, beautiful woman that would carry him, and Taekwoon would not even know who it is, probably would not even bother to know. It shouldn’t bother Hakyeon, but it does. Hakyeon doesn’t want that, he realizes quickly.

“I’ll set up a date so you can meet her,” he says, and Taekwoon looks up at him, puzzled. Hakyeon goes to the adjacent kitchen, passing by the thick envelope, full again with the previously rejected files and the ones that passed all together, on top of the garbage bin, and instead picks up a photo on the kitchen counter. He gives it to Taekwoon. “That’s her.”

A single woman, dark hair in a tight bun on top of her head, clothes a mess of variously colored stains, smiles up at Taekwoon, bright as the sun. Children of no less than three and four years old milled around her, clinging to her back, to her arms, sitting on her lap, laughing.

Hakyeon isn’t sure if it was enough for Taekwoon to understand his choice but, from the soft smile on his husband’s lips, Hakyeon decides it’s a start at least. “Her name’s Kim Hyorin. She’s my best friend.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! ♥  
> If you enjoyed, liked, or loved this story, please let us know by leaving a comment, kudos, or a little gift to us through [here](http://PayPal.Me/ChaJungPiggybank)\--Please do note if it's a gift for the Cha-Jung Household. ♥
> 
> We're not requiring you to do any of that, it's completely up to you. We would just be very thankful for any and all kinds of feedback.
> 
> Have a nice day! ♥


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